The importance of creating, maintaining and protecting natural infrastructure such as wetlands, swales and vegetated buffers cannot be overstated when it comes to flood management and filtering stormwater runoff. Policies supporting this concept would go a long way towards reducing some of the stormwater infiltration into the wastewater collection systems.
Watershed and subwatershed studies should include water quality and water quantity considerations to help maintain and enhance natural freshwater systems, including fisheries and aquatic habitat. These considerations should be guided by commonly accepted and held principles, including an ecosystem-based approach, a landscape-based analysis, cumulative effects, the precautionary approach, adaptive management, and sustainable development.
What are the goals and objectives of this study? There is very little information about the subwatershed study, but instead appears to be primarily designed to manage stormwater run-off to prevent flooding and development impacts.
Bob Florean is retired from 38 years working for the Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry, as a Fish & Wildlife Specialist and Stewardship Coordinator. Bob is also an avid fisherman, whose outdoor related passions include working with various community stewardship champions to enhance, protect and restore compromised natural resource values. Bob is also the founder of the award winning Manitoulin Streams Improvement Assoc.
As part of the Lower Vermilion Source Water Quality Monitoring Project, funded through a 3-year Ontario Trillium Foundation grant, Carrie Strangway completed her Master’s Thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Master of Science in the Faculty of Science, Applied Bioscience, University of Ontario Institute of Technology. What follows is a poster of her more detailed manuscript, which will be published shortly:
Abstract
The Vermilion River and major tributaries (VRMT) receive various point and non-point inputs, in addition to several flow regulation features, along their continuum. Further development in the Vermilion watershed has been proposed, raising concerns about cumulative impacts to the ecological health of the VRMT. To assess the current state of riverine health, water quality metrics were monitored monthly at twenty-eight sites during the ice-free period of 2013 and 2014. Generation of landscape-scale data revealed a broad range of land-cover and road density in the watershed at differing landscape-scales. Sites on the main-stem of the Junction tributary had above average concentrations for the majority of water quality parameters measured, specifically, sites within Copper Cliff Creek and Junction Creek (i.e. CC- 12 and JUN-13) were the most impacted. The river network pathway (i.e. asymmetric eigenvector map (AEM) eigenfunctions) and topographical features (i.e. catchment land-use) explained most of the variation in water quality (62.2%), thus both proved to be useful spatial determinates of deteriorating water quality.
The Vermilion River Stewardship (VRS), is grateful for this opportunity to comment on the draft Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Ramsey Lake Watershed Study; however, the short deadline for comments has made it challenging to make a thorough review. VRS requests that a minimum comment period of 30 days be provided in all future requests for public feedback. This would allow for an adequate opportunity to review and prepare a comprehensive and meaningful submission.
This is the result of a 3 year water quality sampling project on the Lower Vermilion River, within the Vermilion River Watershed.
A big thank you to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for funding this important Project!!
Another big thank you goes out to KGHM International Ltd. for their generous donation and for Conservation Sudbury’s in-kind contribution towards the extension of our Project into the 3rd year!!
Presentation made by Carrie Strangway at Vermilion River Stewardship’s General Meeting on 14 October 2015.
“The VRS wishes to thank the City of Greater Sudbury, Jacques Barbeau, Michael Vagnini, and Sudbury Water/Wastewater staff for taking strong action to protect the health and safety of its citizens“, said Linda Heron, Chair of the VRS.
The City of Greater Sudbury has provided a Sewer Bypass Alert Notification, whereby you can register to receive email notification whenever there is a sewage bypass or wastewater overflow at any of their wastewater treatment facilities.
The Vermilion River Stewardship (VRS) lobbied for this real-time Alert to ensure those families relying on the receiving lakes and rivers for their household water and/or recreational activities are notified whenever a bypass occurs, and can take appropriate action.
You are encouraged to register here to receive Alerts when a sewage bypass or spill occurs. All bypass events will be posted at this location for a period of 7 days after the bypass has ended. Monthly bypass and overflow reports are also available on the Stewardship page.